6 ms·

Sounds a bit like Docker is at a loss. Caught between a closed source OS (rock) and an architecture change (hard place). Ideally, they could leverage Rosetta2

by lsllc 6y ago

Sounds a bit like Docker is at a loss. Caught between a closed source OS (rock) and an architecture change (hard place). Ideally, they could leverage Rosetta2 to run x64 containers under macOS on Apple Silicon ... but I guess Apple isn't playing ball (because otherwise they would have probably announced it at WWDC). At this point I see an Apple Silicon based Mac is just a consumer device, I don't think I'm going to be able to use it in anger for development work at the moment (other than for Mac consumer apps). Not really sure what Apple have to lose here ... but if Macs with Apple Silicon are not a viable dev platform for "mainstream" containers, then that's going to drive developers to Linux (or Windows).

afandian 6y ago
There's an ironic parallel in Docker referring to software as "content".
- tasogare 6y ago
  Wait until parents refer their childs as DLC.
easton 6y ago
I think Apple didn’t want to support x86 emulation at all, and made Rosetta 2 purely AOT compilation (which you can’t really do with virtual machines). It makes it so they don’t have to deal with having x86 VMs available but super slow making people think that Apple Silicon is slow (even if that’s untrue), and that’s kind of the growing pain that Microsoft is going through at the moment with Windows on ARM.
- anyfoo 6y ago
  Rosetta 2 purely AOT? Where did you get that idea from?
  - jagger27 6y ago
    It certainly still does some JIT/interpretation at runtime but it does indeed translate the executable upon first launch.^1 I can’t imagine how it would be able to fully translate a browser JavaScript engine that’s doing its own JIT, for example. 1: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/rosetta-2-translation-can-take-20-seconds/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/rosetta-2-translation-c...
    - xenadu02 6y ago
      Just like the original Rosetta it does indeed cache translations as well as support JIT and other forms of dynamic translation.
    - anyfoo 6y ago
      Exactly. It does AOT, but certainly not exclusively.
- xenadu02 6y ago
  Automatic translation of a hypervisor, guest kernel, and guest userspace is a far different level of difficulty than translating a userspace application. Saying "didn't want to support" implies that one can "just" repurpose binary translation with a few build settings. You're off by several orders of magnitude.
crb002 6y ago
AWS Graviton 2 ARM instances are more cost effective for most server loads. This is a gateway to saving a lot of cloud spend.
- noelherrick 6y ago
  I agree with you, but there's probably already been some pressure with people wanting to use Raspberry PIs/other ARM-based boards for K8s clusters. I wonder where that tipping point will come. Anandtech's benchmarks: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-grav... Here's a tweet about one company's experience: https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1314618333140971521 https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1314618333140971521
  - sitkack 6y ago
    Ubuntu on Arm is mature. I see no reason why Docker on Mac can't be running Armbuntu VMs.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    Most of the Raspberry Pi trials I see end in lots of $100/hr developer time spent waiting for a $10 device to finish being slow. Or, worse, inflicting that experience on customers at a demo booth. It's not an attractive look. A high quality ARM desktop experience could change that.
mrtksn 6y ago
> At this point I see an Apple Silicon based Mac is just a consumer device Not everyone runs Docker or similar to do their work. If it turns out that Apple’s performance claims are true, I don’t see people easily letting it go, a snappy machine is a serious advantage. After all, we are in this deep trouble because of the endless layers of abstraction, so I don’t see it getting any speedier anytime soon for the status quo. Amazing blank sheets could open on this news M1 macs. The performance claims are substantial, it could mean 3000$ snappiness at 1000$. A bit like making cheap DSLR and now everyone is a professional photographer, making room for new tools for the new comers. Mac prices are the gatekeeper for the Apple dev ecosystem in the developing world or students from low income background because most will try to get the best bang for their limited bucks. Maybe it’s possible to unlock it?
- nl 6y ago
  If Docker performance on Mac was a disincentive for using it, then people would have abandoned it because of the hypervisor instead of container architecture.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    Not docker performance but IDE and other tools performance and effortlessness. That's where tool user, AKA "The Developer" experiences the performance. If the autocomplete comes up fast, you are a happy developer, if your scripts finish running instantly on every save, you are a happy developer. If you click and it runs, you are a happy developer. If you think about it, Docker itself is about that comfort of not having to deal with the tool setup every time. On Apple dev technology that's the default without Docker. Search for Xcode on AppStore, click download, click open once it's downloaded, write your Swift code that can do UI and backend , click run and it runs. Sometimes autocomplete stops working but you just close Xcode and open it again and it works :) There's nothing you can't do on 2015 Macbook Air that can be done on a fresh high end Macbook Pro. The difference comes from the comfort of being snappy and people pay multiple times more for that snappiness.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 6y ago
I have been coding for 30+ years, and am yet to run Docker in anger. And by the looks of it, when I finally get to do some project with it, the language specific runtime tools like Project Tye for .NET would already have replaced it.
happymellon 6y ago
Not sure what you are talking about, I do all sorts of Docker stuff on ARM (home lab Pi's and Graviton2 for work). This is actually going to make it easier for me, as more ARM base images will get created.
hda111 6y ago
Docker Desktop is closed source on all platform it supports. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like to use it even on Windows. There is no way to report bugs (no one from dev team replies to it), and no bug fixes from the community are possible. When using containers nowadays I would keep everything open source, like LXC/LXD, Cri-O, Podman. All run perfectly fine on the Linux kernel that comes with Windows. Apple has to do something similar to WSL to make devs happy.

by lsllc 6y ago

afandian 6y ago

There's an ironic parallel in Docker referring to software as "content".

tasogare 6y ago
Wait until parents refer their childs as DLC.

easton 6y ago

I think Apple didn’t want to support x86 emulation at all, and made Rosetta 2 purely AOT compilation (which you can’t really do with virtual machines). It makes it so they don’t have to deal with having x86 VMs available but super slow making people think that Apple Silicon is slow (even if that’s untrue), and that’s kind of the growing pain that Microsoft is going through at the moment with Windows on ARM.

anyfoo 6y ago
Rosetta 2 purely AOT? Where did you get that idea from?
- jagger27 6y ago
  It certainly still does some JIT/interpretation at runtime but it does indeed translate the executable upon first launch.^1 I can’t imagine how it would be able to fully translate a browser JavaScript engine that’s doing its own JIT, for example. 1: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/rosetta-2-translation-can-take-20-seconds/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/rosetta-2-translation-c...
  - xenadu02 6y ago
    Just like the original Rosetta it does indeed cache translations as well as support JIT and other forms of dynamic translation.
  - anyfoo 6y ago
    Exactly. It does AOT, but certainly not exclusively.
xenadu02 6y ago
Automatic translation of a hypervisor, guest kernel, and guest userspace is a far different level of difficulty than translating a userspace application. Saying "didn't want to support" implies that one can "just" repurpose binary translation with a few build settings. You're off by several orders of magnitude.

crb002 6y ago

AWS Graviton 2 ARM instances are more cost effective for most server loads. This is a gateway to saving a lot of cloud spend.

noelherrick 6y ago
I agree with you, but there's probably already been some pressure with people wanting to use Raspberry PIs/other ARM-based boards for K8s clusters. I wonder where that tipping point will come. Anandtech's benchmarks: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-grav... Here's a tweet about one company's experience: https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1314618333140971521 https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1314618333140971521
- sitkack 6y ago
  Ubuntu on Arm is mature. I see no reason why Docker on Mac can't be running Armbuntu VMs.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Most of the Raspberry Pi trials I see end in lots of $100/hr developer time spent waiting for a $10 device to finish being slow. Or, worse, inflicting that experience on customers at a demo booth. It's not an attractive look. A high quality ARM desktop experience could change that.

mrtksn 6y ago

> At this point I see an Apple Silicon based Mac is just a consumer device Not everyone runs Docker or similar to do their work. If it turns out that Apple’s performance claims are true, I don’t see people easily letting it go, a snappy machine is a serious advantage. After all, we are in this deep trouble because of the endless layers of abstraction, so I don’t see it getting any speedier anytime soon for the status quo. Amazing blank sheets could open on this news M1 macs. The performance claims are substantial, it could mean 3000$ snappiness at 1000$. A bit like making cheap DSLR and now everyone is a professional photographer, making room for new tools for the new comers. Mac prices are the gatekeeper for the Apple dev ecosystem in the developing world or students from low income background because most will try to get the best bang for their limited bucks. Maybe it’s possible to unlock it?

nl 6y ago
If Docker performance on Mac was a disincentive for using it, then people would have abandoned it because of the hypervisor instead of container architecture.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  Not docker performance but IDE and other tools performance and effortlessness. That's where tool user, AKA "The Developer" experiences the performance. If the autocomplete comes up fast, you are a happy developer, if your scripts finish running instantly on every save, you are a happy developer. If you click and it runs, you are a happy developer. If you think about it, Docker itself is about that comfort of not having to deal with the tool setup every time. On Apple dev technology that's the default without Docker. Search for Xcode on AppStore, click download, click open once it's downloaded, write your Swift code that can do UI and backend , click run and it runs. Sometimes autocomplete stops working but you just close Xcode and open it again and it works :) There's nothing you can't do on 2015 Macbook Air that can be done on a fresh high end Macbook Pro. The difference comes from the comfort of being snappy and people pay multiple times more for that snappiness.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

pjmlp 6y ago

I have been coding for 30+ years, and am yet to run Docker in anger. And by the looks of it, when I finally get to do some project with it, the language specific runtime tools like Project Tye for .NET would already have replaced it.

happymellon 6y ago

Not sure what you are talking about, I do all sorts of Docker stuff on ARM (home lab Pi's and Graviton2 for work). This is actually going to make it easier for me, as more ARM base images will get created.

hda111 6y ago

Docker Desktop is closed source on all platform it supports. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like to use it even on Windows. There is no way to report bugs (no one from dev team replies to it), and no bug fixes from the community are possible. When using containers nowadays I would keep everything open source, like LXC/LXD, Cri-O, Podman. All run perfectly fine on the Linux kernel that comes with Windows. Apple has to do something similar to WSL to make devs happy.